Estella Loretto, sculptor, ceramicist, jeweler, printmaker, and painter, was born in 1954 on the Pueblo of Jemez reservation in New Mexico, USA. From an early age she was interested in visual arts and learned traditional pottery from her mother, Pueblo ceramicist Albenita Loretto. At fifteen years-old, Loretto left the reservation to attend the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe. She received an American Field Service Scholarship which allowed her to study for a semester in Antwerp and Bruges, and she graduated in 1972. Loretto also studied at the University of Benito Juarez in Oaxaca, Mexico. She explored the villages throughout Oaxaca, learned the Spanish language, and immersed herself in indigenous cultures and art practices. 

A foreign study Grant from the All Indian Pueblo Council allowed Loretto to travel to Nepal and India, where she studied Nepalese ceremonial art and spiritual practices. In 1975, she earned her B.A. in Social Sciences and Ethnic Art Studies from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. 

In 1978, Loretto was awarded two Fellowships, one from the Japanese government to study at Tekisui Museum of Traditional Japanese Pottery in Ashiya, and the other from the Royal Family of Iran to continue her studies in Japan at the Oomoto School of Traditional Japanese Arts. She participated in her first formal exhibition at the Emabashi Gallery in Osaka, Japan, before returning to Pueblo Jemez in the latter half of the year to study traditional pottery once more with her mother and other master Pueblo artists. She also studied raku firing from Robert Piepenburg.

Loretto received the Most Distinguished Artist award from the Museum of Native American Cultures, Spokane, Washington in 1986. Further studies took her to the South Pacific where she studied woodcarving, and to the state of Washington where she studied printmaking with Master Printer Arlene Mickelsen in Issaquah, and raku studies with Ralph Esposito in Spokane in 1987. 

Between the years 1992 and 1994, Loretto worked as the sole apprentice to Allan Houser, a monumental sculptor, at his studio in Santa Fe. She completed her first sculpture in 1983 and became the first nationally recognized Native American woman to work in monumental sculpture. After have studied with Ray Tracey, Loretto began making jewelry in the late 1990s. 

Loretto’s work was included in exhibitions in New York, Washington, Hawaii, and throughout the Southwest. In 1981, she was the showcased artist during the Santa Fe Indian Market, where her work was shown nearly every year through 2019. 

In 2001, Loretto became the first School of American Research (now the School for Advanced Research) Rollin and Mary Ella King Fellow. Her bronze sculpture of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha was commissioned by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and stands in the courtyard St. Francis Cathedral. The sculpture was completed in 2010 and represents the 17^th century Algonquin-Mohawk woman Kateri Tekakwitha, who was canonized by the Catholic Church.

Her work is included in various private and corporate collections, and is represented in the Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico; and the New Mexico Capitol Art Collection, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Estella Loretto continues to live and work in Santa Fe, New Mexico.